Not everything a church does to a pastor is outside the reach of the court. That is a recent lesson church officials learned in a case out of Ohio federal court dealing with the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine. Also known as the church autonomy doctrine, this is the principle that civil courts will stay out of the doctrinal and important decisions a church makes, such as the decision to fire a pastor or remove a parishioner from membership. This case, Barrow v. Living Word Church, et al.,1 is an interesting twist on the doctrine, and serves as a word of caution for churches.

Pastors work tirelessly preparing for sermons, counseling parishioners, and managing other administrative aspects of running a church. A teacher at a religious school spends countless hours developing lesson plans, and even more instructing students on matters of doctrine. A missionary’s work in the field does not fit the traditional 9 to 5 work day, and the person may be “on call” nearly 24-7. Often, religious workers, driven by a sense of calling, work far more than a 40-hour-work week. Does a religious organization have to pay overtime under a federal law called the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)? While the answer used to be “most likely not,” a recent change in the rules governing when overtime must be paid creates some confusion, and probably a mixed result.

Defamation claims against religious organizations are more common than you would think. It’s almost impossible to challenge who a religious organization selects as a minister or how it disciplines that minister. So these claims focus on the idea that what was said about the minister is defamatory—something that is not directly controlled by constitutional law. Here is a recent example of a case that ultimately had an indirect constitutional defense.

I can see how this gives religious freedom. I can also see organizations getting lazy with it. I guess my struggle with the ministerial exception is that it is not broad enough in another way. As a psychologist ...

As a general rule, most missionaries would fit the ministerial exception, and it would be the rare employee where the mission would say that the person does not further its religious purposes. Persons would not be included under this exception if...

Between 1975 and 2005 I completed innumerable candidate assessments (I never counted them!). I was always pushed, at least in the beginnings of my relationships with a mission board, or when a new candidate person came on board, to tell them if the person should be a missionary, or not.

There are many potential ethical problems in mission for psychologists with professional licenses. And if you get caught up in these ethical problems, you may do real harm to people, you may be liable for malpractice, and you could lose your professional license.

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